Jobs

Climate Torah Communications Fellowship

For the fourth year in a row, Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action is hosting Clergy Student Fellows to join in building a spiritually-rooted, bold Jewish climate movement and to provide spiritually meaningful opportunities to Jews in the United States who are wrestling with and wanting to make an impact on the climate crisis. 

The 2023-2024 Climate Torah Communications Fellow will work closely with the Director of Spiritual Activism & Education to grow and spiritually-resource the Jewish climate movement, especially through Torah (broadly defined).

We are building a spiritually-rooted movement through:

  • Spiritual Adaptation Workshops: We create brave spaces for American Jews across generations, geographies, and identities to face climate realities, process grief, envision a just, livable future, and set off on a path of bold, resilient action. This work is currently based on Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects spiral and we have been exploring other modalities of Jewish practice like mussar.
  • Climate Torah: We anchor all of our movement-building and campaign work in Jewish classical and contemporary sources, holiday cycles, and cultural wisdom. We believe that Torah (writ large) can help us live well in this time of transformation, grief, possibility, active hope, and uncertainty, and can be a powerful guide for our justice work. We are excited for a Climate Torah Communications fellow to help compile, strategize about, teach, and share Dayenu’s text resources and learning with a broad Jewish audience.
  • Climate Music & Arts: Climate Music & Arts: We are amplifying, resourcing, and growing the fields of Jewish climate music and visionary writing / climate storytelling with the aim of inspiring and mobilizing the Jewish climate movement. In 2022-2023, with the support of our rabbinic fellows, we curated and launched a new songbook and a new creative writing branch of climate arts: midrash + imagination.

This position starts September 5, 2023 and ends May 31, 2024 (38 weeks), with a commitment of 8 hours per week on average. Stipend is $10,000, which is $33/hour. 

The position is fully remote, with the option to work at the Dayenu office at 475 Riverside Drive, Suite 1800, New York, New York. This position reports to Dayenu’s Director of Spiritual Activism and Education, Rabbi Laura Bellows, who is based in Boston. Fellows will receive mentoring, training and supervision from staff at Dayenu as well as the support of a small Dayenu clergy fellowship cohort.

Apply by Wednesday, June 21, 2023. Please contact [email protected] to inquire about any remaining openings.

Role description:   

This fellowship position will focus on communicating about, teaching, and sharing Dayenu’s existent and emergent Climate Torah.

  • Get to know Dayenu’s Climate Torah and strategize about a communication and outreach plan for existent source sheets, resources, and teachings.
  • Share Dayenu’s Climate Torah with a broad network of clergy, organizers, and activists through social media, email, teaching, etc.
  • Help integrate and leverage Torah in many aspects of Dayenu’s work, from campaign actions and trainings, to resources for Dayenu Circles, from Instagram reels to in-person and virtual events. This may include opportunities to collaborate with the Climate Arts clergy fellow and our Organizing Team.
  • Track the results of your work and make adjustments to meet shared goals.
  • Support Spiritual Adaptation workshop planning, coordination, and ideation.
  • Participate in group and individual reflection on climate work as rabbinic practice.
  • Contribute to building a culture and practice of spirit, joy, impact, ritual, and community. 

Qualifications:

  • Excitement to engage with Torah as a source of spiritual sustenance for climate justice work.
  • Comfort accessing and learning classical Jewish sources (including Torah, Talmud, Midrash) in their original and in translation.
  • Experience teaching Jewish sources (classical to contemporary) and making them accessible for learners of many Jewish and educational backgrounds.
  • Ability to work well independently and collaboratively. 
  • Experience organizing in a Jewish context, or organizing experience plus experience in Jewish communities.
  • A track record of working with people across lines of difference and a commitment to anti-racist practices.
  • Strong listening skills and interpersonal communication including over phone, video, email, and text.
  • Experience working with social media is a plus.

Dayenu is an equal opportunity employer, and we are committed to racial equity and accessibility.  Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, Black and Indigenous people, people of color, people with disabilities, and LGBTQIA people are strongly encouraged to apply.  We know historically that women and people of color don’t apply to jobs unless they meet 100% of the qualifications. We encourage you to apply if you think you might be a good fit even if you don’t meet 100% of the listed requirements. Dayenu does not discriminate in employment opportunities or practices on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, disability, sex, age, gender identity or expression, or other status protected by applicable law.

About Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action

Dayenu is building a movement of American Jews confronting the climate crisis with spiritual audacity and bold political action. We mobilize Jewish support for climate solutions, build our collective power, and raise up a spiritual, religious, and moral voice in the national and global movements confronting the climate crisis. We care deeply about equity and justice in our world and about the future we create for our children and future generations. We believe that together, drawing from our Jewish tradition, experience, and faith, we have the power to create real and lasting change.

We focus on three main areas of work: Bold action to advance comprehensive climate policy and ensure a just transition away from fossil fuels; spiritual adaptation that helps people confront the reality of the climate crisis and grapple with the deep spiritual and existential questions it raises; and movement-building.

Through a growing network of Dayenu Circles across the country and partnerships with Jewish communal institutions and multifaith and secular organizations, we’re gathering, training, and taking collective action to advance systemic solutions to the climate crisis, at the scale that science and justice demand.

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By signing up, you will receive periodic communications from Dayenu.